![Detail from Young Woman in Front of the Mirror, by Giovanni Bellini, c.1515 [Wikipedia]](https://i0.wp.com/sophias-children.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/giovanni-bellini-detail-of-young-woman-with-a-mirror.jpg)
“Now I become myself.
It’s taken time,
many years and places.
I have been dissolved
and shaken, Worn other
people’s faces. …”
May Sarton, Now I Become Myself*
Over the years, I’ve noticed a pattern: A lot of astrologers, intuitives, and psychics say that the number one question that their clients ask them is, “What is my life purpose?”
I’ve read and heard this very thing several times in the last week alone. I’m sure those in other ‘helping’ or wisdom-sharing professions hear this question a lot as well.
It’s understandable, given the double-barrel influence of conditioning and a barrage of neuromarketing-based advertising that tells us what we should be and why who or what we are is flawed, wrong, shameful, or unacceptable (because people who feel centered in their authenticity probably don’t make as good consumer-drones as those who feel perpetually insecure and off-center).
It’s also a sad reflection on how disconnected we are from our inner wellspring that we look outside for someone else to tell us such a thing, rather than, say, for believing mirrors who just reflect it back to us.
We entrust that tender and sacred yearning to not just know our place in this life but to feel the sense of meaning and joy of expressing it; of feeling welcomed, appreciated, and at home.
No one can tell us who we are or what our life purpose is, and if they do, be very wary, or at least very discerning.
That said, and thank god/dess for it, there will be those who light candles, hold lanterns, suggest clues, illuminate patterns and themes, or reflect and water the most exquisite facets of our deeper, truer selves. These latter guides and anam cara and believing mirrors are ‘pearls of great price’ in this life.
While some can help us to find the way, and some others inspire and encourage us along the way, only we can ask and live into the question of who we truly are and what our most deeply felt vocation or purpose is.
It’s waiting there; it wants to be discovered; and chances are there are clues scattered all around, and the barometer is within you.
[This post was inspired by the May Sarton poem fragment that I found in a Wake-Up Juice newsletter edition I wrote in 2007, called Our Deepest Calling.]
Lots of love,
* Read the full poem, Now I Become Myself by May Sarton here.
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